After Northwestern beat Rice on Saturday, David Nwabuisi said that the Wildcats defense was getting simpler.
During Monday’s press conference, Pat Fitzgerald was not buying anything the junior linebacker said.
“Every team is different, every defense is a little bit different,” Fitzgerald said. “Some of the things we were able to be successful with in the past, we just weren’t able to be successful with this year. We’ve tried to do things we think our players do well.”
Simple or complex, the Wildcats’ defense has been playing better during its current three-game winning streak. NU has given up an average of 121 rushing yards in its last two games and held Rice to six points Saturday, 19 points below the Owls’ season average.
One player in particular who has stepped up for the Cats is Ibraheim Campbell. The freshman safety’s nine tackles Saturday catapulted him into the team lead with 74 tackles, one more than Nwabuisi. Campbell attributed his recent strong play to getting more reps under his belt.
“The largest difference would just be experience,” Campbell said. “It’s learning from the mistakes I made earlier in the season and just making the best out of the opportunities that we’re getting now. It’s basically just learning and growing as a player.”
Campbell said he relied on senior safety Brian Peters and defensive backs coach Jerry Brown to help him through tough times earlier this season. He said that he is not one to get too high or too low but that it was nice to have the veteran leaders there for support if he needed them.
“They both know how much it means to me and how much I put into it,” Campbell said. “They just tried to keep me straight with my head as far as dealing with the pressure and things like that.”
The defensive improvement can also be credited to the extra film sessions the defense has scheduled together. Sophomore defensive tackle Will Hampton said on Nov. 5 that the defense had planned additional time for watching film to help increase chemistry.
Redshirt freshman linebacker Chi Chi Ariguzo said that the defensive players are just trying to get a better understanding of what their teammates are seeing on the field. Ariguzo said that the meetings have most impacted the Cats’ play in terms of talking to one another.
“We’ve seen a lot of improvement just by communicating,” Ariguizo said. “We haven’t had many miscues on communications in the game so far.”
That’s a far step from NU’s 41-31 loss to Iowa on Oct. 15, after which junior cornerback Demetrius Dugar admitted that the secondary was running into communication issues. Campbell said Monday that the secondary has increased its focus on communication in practice especially since breakdowns cost the team numerous times towards the beginning of the season. He said that the secondary simply realized that the breakdowns in communication stood in the way of the secondary doing its job.
Campbell could not pinpoint a specific point when the defense started to click, but said that after a rough stretch, a team begins to realize what the issues are and what it needs to correct.
“After so many bad things have happened to you,” Campbell said. “You basically realize what you need to fix. You just got to make the most out of what you see and what you experience.”
